Then Rory walked shirtless into the bathroom and approached the sink. Slightly disappointed, I didn’t notice any hives or rashes. Maybe I should have used the whole pill. He didn’t bother looking in my direction.
I wanted to say, “Hellllllloooooo, there’s a naked woman in here.”
Instead, I softened and asked, “How are you feeling, honey? Are you ready?”
“You know it.” I’m sure he revisited his checklist as he lathered shaving cream onto his face. The man shaved twice a day and always glistened. He could be the face of Gillette.
I sat up higher in the tub, revealing more of my body. Turning up the sexiness in my voice, I said, “You’ll kill it, mister. Like you always do.” Rory nodded, and I asked, “Is there anything I can do for you?” He shook his head. He wasn’t remotely enticed by my subtle offer to give him an orgasm, and I translated his reaction to mean that he wasn’t interested in giving me one either. A wave of defeat ran over me. Why couldn’t he even turn around? What man doesn’t want to see a naked woman?
I fought for patience and scrambled for my next move. Should I invite him into the tub? We had plenty of time, and we’d succeeded underwater before. As awkward as those times were, the memories still brought a smile to my face. I used to love it when he slipped into the bubbles and disturbed me from my dreams.
Now, though, he didn’t care that his beautiful, now skinny, short-haired wife sat naked in the tub wanting him. He didn’t care that I wasn’t repulsive. He didn’t care about my beautiful breasts and swollen nipples poking just above the sudsy waterline.
I wanted to tell him to “forget the damned razor, turn around, and drop your pants.Show me what you got!”I didn’t care if I received anything out of it. I’d be so thrilled just to give. Sure, I’d love an orgasm, but I would have happily given him a hand job, sohe might remember what I can do for him. Any step toward an intimate physical relationship would be fine.
I knew, though, from experience, that there was no way we would have such an encounter. The Rory that I had married wasn’t home. Politician Rory was in residence. Dream Killer Rory was most likely here. The Bed-and-Breakfast Hater was in residence. The man I’d married? Not in this home. I sighed and closed my eyes again, returning to my daydream, trying to let go of my frustrations.
I was imagining Philippe playfully running after a hen when Rory asked, “What are you thinking about?”
I almost told him the truth, but I knew where that conversation would go. Rory would turn his head and tell me to let it go. That there was no way we would buy an inn and take on a new project when his career was on fire. He had no time for such trivial business concepts when he was about to turn the state of Vermont over on its head. Like I said, his “no” was beyond firm on this one.
For most of the past year, I might have fed his ego with an ass-kissing answer. I might have told him I was thinking about what color tie he should wear or what dress I’d wear that might complement his look. I was, after all, his arm candy—his accoutrement. Everything I said and did needed to support his mission.
But the power of this pressure-release solution was softening. I was angry again, and it felt increasingly like my passive-aggressive attacks had lost their power. Okay, poisoning him might have been a length or two past a “little passive-aggressive attack.” And even that hadn’t worked! Almost like a medicine you take too often, my domestic remedies had lost their effect. No matter how much calm and peace my daydreams about the inn brought me, I couldn’t shake the anger and utter frustration inside. Did I need to increase the dosage even more?
I felt confrontational, and even though I knew it wasn’t the right time, I said rather truthfully, “I was thinking about chickens.I want themsobadly. Can you imagine bringing a basket of fresh eggs into the kitchen every day? We’d have the most amazing breakfasts. Fried eggs with rich orange yolks. Frittatas that would bring tears to your eyes. French toast that would make your mouth water. Fresh pasta all the time.Hmmm. We could raise Easter Egger hens, and the eggs would be a rainbow of colors. I’d do all the work. You wouldn’t have to lift a finger. I’ll find a contractor to build the coop.” I was spitting out anything that came to mind. Being married to a politician meant that I had to work hard to get what I wanted. To that end, I needed to slip into his skin, understand his wants and needs, and appeal more specifically to him.
Verbally pivoting, I sat up and said, “Imagine when people visit. It’s such a trend now to have your own chickens. It’ll make you, makeus, seem more real. Real people. Weekend farmers. Not afraid to get our hands dirty. With this Whole Foods and farmers market movement, we’d be one of the early adopters to implement the program in our area. I could make deviled eggs and other things for our parties and brag about how the eggs had come from our own hens. I could name the hens after Broadway women, and your constituents will love us even more.” I had to stop there and rest my case. I couldn’t seem too desperate, or he might argue that I was being irrational.
Being a good listener and a good politician go hand in hand. For that entire diatribe, Rory hadn’t said a word. In fact, he’d stopped shaving and turned around to listen. He was always good about letting the other person finish before he responded. If others weren’t careful, they’d interpret his silence and slow nod as some sort of consensus, but that was rarely the case. He was preparing for his next debate, like the ones he’d been winning since his debate team debut in high school.
He wiped off some shaving cream that had dripped down his chest and finally granted me a response. In a placating tone, he warned, “Nice try, Margot. Please don’t try to entice me by makingowning chickens sound like a political issue. I see right through it. You can’t bullshit a bullshitter. You know that.” He sighed. “I’ll tell you this right now. A few birds in our front yard will not put me in a senate seat. It would be just another distraction for both of us. We already have plenty going on. Honestly, we both know you’ll never stop. I let you adopt a dog and now it’s chickens. After chickens, it will be a horse. Eventually, you’ll want a damned elephant. I have no intention of allowing you to turn this place into a menagerie, and I’m putting an end to this whole idea of yours before it goes any further.”
He sliced his hand through the air and continued, “I’m drawing the line, honey. I’m sorry. It seems like a fun little thing to you, but you’re not thinking of the downside.”
What I was thinking of was how all he did was slice and chop his hand through the air, cutting off any hope I had to find the light in this dark Dream Killer world I’d come to inhabit.
“Having chickens,” he continued, “means feeding them and collecting eggs. Cleaning out the coop is easy enough in the summer, but what about when it’s freezing cold and icy outside like today? What about when it’s pouring down rain? And forget about predators. You won’t swat at a fly. What are you going to do when a coyote comes after them? Or a snake? Ask them politely to go on their merry way? You don’t need me to tell you you’re not a farm girl.”
His last comment infuriated me more than anything he’d said in weeks. Especially since he was now chuckling at the preposterousness of the idea.
I could be a farm girl. He just wouldn’t allow me to become one. In his mind, he didn’t see me as an equal…as an independent woman. He was reducing me to child status. I wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty. I wasn’t afraid of the cold. Come to think of it, I wasn’t afraid of making him sit out there in the cold at night to guard the flock.
I started to argue, but the Chicken Hater wasn’t finished and plowed ahead. Wind him up and he can go all day, even if it’s in the wrong direction. “Worst of all, you can barely handle the death of a bug. You’ve been known to spend nearly an entire day trying to catch a spider in the house to set him free outside. How are you going to deal with a dead bird? These chickens…they die all the time. I can’t have you going through a monthlong mourning period every time a hen kicks the bucket. I can already see you needing to have a funeral every time you lose one.”
Wow, he wasn’t coming around at all.
The Dream Killer strikes again.
My jaw tightened, and I pressed against the walls of the tub with my feet and hands. As my dream of chickens died in my heart, my blood simmered. I wanted to stand up and yell, “Why are you not having sex with me right now! How is that possible? I look better than I ever have, and you don’t even notice me. You could have meeverymorning.” I wanted to point to my body and say, “You could havethisevery morning! Look at me!Lookat me!”
I remained quiet, though. I already knew how he would respond to such an outburst, and I didn’t need to be further humiliated at that point. He’d tell me he didn’t have time to make love and didn’t have time to argue. Tonight was important. We could make love later.
Once he’d finished shaving and had patted his face with aftershave, he left the bathroom. We both knew silence was the best option at that moment. Sometimes it’s best to walk away. Hearing his footfalls smacking the steps, I climbed out of the tub and slipped into my robe. The pressure inside me was building, and I had to find a release.
In the bedroom, Philippe rested on his doggie bed by the window. I patted my bed until he jumped up. That felt nice. One small step for womankind.
The pressure was still building, though.
